Category: Personal

The Future of Pizza Ordering According To Cambridge Analytica. Is this in our ‘not too distant’ future?

Picture the scenario – the other chap is now working at a well known Pizza company…..

“Hello! Is this Gordon’s Pizza?”

“No sir – it’s Google Pizza.”

“I must have dialed a wrong number. Sorry.”

“No sir – Google bought Gordon’s Pizza last month.”

“OK. I would like to order a pizza.”

“Do you want your usual, sir?”

“My usual – you know me?”

“According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with three cheeses – sausage – pepperoni – mushrooms and meat balls on a thick crust.”

“OK – that’s what I want.”

“May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta – arugula – sun-dried tomatoes and olives on a whole wheat, gluten free, thin crust?”

“What? I detest vegetables.”

“Your cholesterol is not good, sir.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“Well, we cross-referenced your home phone number with your medical records. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years.”

“Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetable pizza! I already take medication for my cholesterol.”

“Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly. According to our database, you only purchased a box of 30 cholesterol tablets once, at Drugsale Network, 4 months ago.”

“I bought more from another drugstore.”

“That doesn’t show on your credit card statement.”

“I paid in cash.”

“But you did not withdraw enough cash according to your bank statement.”

“I have other sources of cash.”

“That doesn’t show on your last tax return unless you bought them using an undeclared income source, which is against the law.”

“WHAT THE HELL? ! ! ! !”

“I’m sorry, sir, we use such information only with the sole intention of helping you.”

“Enough already! I’m sick to death of Google – Facebook – Twitter – WhatsApp and all the others!! I’m going to an island without internet – cable TV – where there is no cell phone service and no one to watch me or spy on me !!”

Graham was involved with an artist …

Raymond Hitchcock: Lovers in the Poppyfields (1955)

… and it seemed like fun at the time. However, the lady had patterns (!). Her creativity (lost-) waxed and waned with the moon, or the tides, or (not putting too fine a point on it) her menstrual state. The Chap somehow turned, during such seasons, from Adonis to Bluebeard. Partner artist’s manic creativity spiked high at those times, and for a Chap with survival in mind, rapid and adequate (even excessive) provision of the apparent creative necessaries — pencils, fabric, printing ink, et al. became a paramount issue. (Think 2 a.m. ice cream and pickles, for those inclined to procreation.) It worked, in its own way, and this chap had a fairly peaceful and happy life for a while.

When this Chap were a Lad …

… or a Tyke (aye, it wor’ a while ago), meat were properly cooked, ‘appen. (The reader will no doubt aim off for the accent, at this stage.) Even at the best dining establishments in Great Yarmouth — dwell on that, for a moment — a trace of reddish fluid on the plate was cause to send the dish back for proper cooking.

Leaving home engendered the odd change, in eating as elsewhere, and for the last couple of decades — OK, few decades — it has never occurred to the Chap that meat outside of stew should be cooked other than rare. But equally, it has never occurred to him that the state of one’s meat equated in any way to the state of ones masculinity. (Although the act of eating meat is an old indicator of red-in-tooth-and-claw masculinity.) Other males and genders were perfectly free to make their own choices, right or wrong.